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BANANAS 



THE GOLDEN TREASURE OF THE 
TROPICS 



By EDWARD W, PERRY 



PRICE I C CENTS 



COPYRIGHT 

1905 

BY HARRY WILKIN PERRY 



UBRARY of JONGRESS 
fwu Copies rtectiiveu 

JUN 29 1905 

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REVISED EDITION 



NOTE 



The chapter given in the following pages is from a work 
entitled : "Tropical America : Its Planters and Planta- 
tions," now in preparation. Sforfs Afield said of the 
author: "Probably no American is more competent to write 
of the country life than is this author, who, because of his 
long-trained habits of observation, careful search for the 
Dottom facts and weighing of details, of deducing therefrom 
the essentials and presenting them clearly and concisely, 
has made the best possible use of his time and experience." 



THE GOLDEN TREASURE OF 
THE TROPICS. 



Nature's Institution for the Promotion of 
Laziness. Bananas: What They are, how 
they grow, what they cost, and what they 

GIVE to man. 

Long before the dawn of history in the Old 
World, mayhap long- before that Old World arose 
from the waters, man lived on the fruit of the Musas. 
There are many who would tell }ou that the banana 
is the fruit which tempted Eve, to the downfall of 
Adam ; and that evidence of the truth of this may be 
found in the fact that, if one will cut across a banana, 
of the right kind, he may find in its heart the sign 
of the cross ; and in the other fact that men of 
learning have given to a family of bananas the 
name of Miisa paradisiaca, which being interpreted 
means the fruit of paradise, and to another family 
they have given the name Musa sapicntiiui, which 
the sapient know means the fruit of knowledge. 
Less evidence has served well enough to burn 
heretics at the stake. 



LIMITED AREA OF BANANA LAND 5 

Man has carried this gigantic herb to every 
warm and fertile spot in a belt that girdles the waist 
of the globe — a girdle that is four thousand miles 
and more in width. Unfortunately for humanity at 
large, however profitable the fact may become for 
the lucky few who grow the fruit, great areas of 
that belt are high, dry or sterile ; others are sandy 
or rocky deserts, and an immense part of the belt 
is covered by oceans, so that only a small area is 
suited to the banana, and of that area only a frac- 
tion is so located that banana growing can be made 
largely profitable. Yet millions imcounted have 
looked to it for the chief of their diet, as other mil- 
lions have looked to the cereals. And to this hour 
puling babes and doddering ancients are fed with 
the fruit in all its stages and conditions, green or 
over-ripe, raw or roasted, baked or fried, liquid or 
dried. At least forty species of the Musas are known 
and described, and of these there are fully eighty- 
five sub-varieties. The fruit of some of these is of 
most delicate and agreeable flavor, while that of 
others is rank and disagreeable. 

When in the course of human events it becomes 
necessary for the single man of the tropics to take 
unto himself a help meet for him, and to provide for 
other events likely to come after, he selects some 
fertile spot, usually on the border of waters over 
which his canoe may easily carry the bulky harvests 
he will have ; and there he cuts down tree and vine. 



HOW BANANAS GROW 



bush and bamboo, and lets them He as they fall in 
tangled mass. Every day the ardent sun helps the 
constant wind to shrivel leaf and twig until, one day, 
the windward edge of that snarl is touched by the 
torch, and in a moment a blazing hades is where a 
cool and shady grove will soon rustle in the breeze. 

When the last flame has flickered out and the 
coals lie dead beneath their gray shroud, women 
paddle to that place with canoes laden with banana 
sprouts. With machetes they dig little pits amid 
charred stumps and trunks and branches, and in 
each hole they set a sprout. Then they go away 
to wait, and rest ; and the sun shines warmly down 
into that clearing, breezes sift a gray veil of ashes 
over the wilted suckers that look like black and 
ragged stakes ; and at last come showers which wash 
them clean. 

Those stakes are made up of sheathes of leaves 
tightly rolled one around another, the inner ones 
narrow, cream-colored and tender ; those nearer the 
outer sheathes v/ider and yet wider, until the outer- 
most is reached. This enwraps nearly or quite 
three-fourths of the stem, and from its edges a 
multitude of brown and interwoven threads run 
out, to tie the whole together, as in a net. When 
the warm rains fall, the tender leaves unroll and 
spread to their widest, and the sun dries and the 
wind whips them until soon they are split into nar- 
row ribbons ; and a few weeks after that planting a 



t-RUITING OF BANANAS ^ 

sea of tattered banners waves and whispers in the 
breeze — a roof of bright and tender green thickly 
shading the moist, black ground. 

Not before the plant has grown to a height of 
ten or twenty, and in some places to thirty feet, does 
the fruit stem begin pushing its way up from the 
base through the middle of the stalk. In a short 
time it sends out at the top one or two leaves, 
smaller than their older fellows, as a signal that 
flower and fruit will quickly follow. Soon every 
supporting column of those graceful arches ends in 
a cone of red that deepens into purple and swells 
until its outer petals are crowded off by the fatness 
of the fruits they hide, that these may have air and 
light. Under those petals the baby bananas are 
packed close, like fingers tightly gripping the parent 
stem. These closed ranks, each separate hand or 
wdiorl reaching half w^ay around the stalk, grow 
so quickly that in six or eight weeks the bunch 
weighs fifty pounds or more. 

To most people of northern climes bananas are 
merely — bananas. For such folks know as little of 
the many varieties of bananas as they know of the 
many and varied uses of that fruit. Perchance that 
is why they fry the common yellow guineo which 
comes by millions of bunches each year to the 
United States, and then wonder that folk who have 
dwelt in the tropics, and who extol cooked bananas, 
show nevertheless that they cannot like the mushy, 



BANANAS THAT ARE FIT TO COOK 9 

clo}ing' mess set before them liere. He who grows 
bananas, and she who cooks them for him, select 
for frying that thick-bodied, hard-fleshed and rather 
tart fruit which ihey call platano, and which is by 
blundering English-speaking tongues misnamed 
plantain. And even among the platanos there is 
room for choosing, for there are of them several 
varieties. Best of these is that little one which 
bears, on the Mosquito Shore whence best bananas 
come, the Spanish name "miel," or honey, coupled 
with the Waika word "silpe," or little. The name 
"maiden" platano also is given to the "little honey," 
most fittingly, for it has just enough of piquant tart- 
ness to give unfailing relish, yet is tender, plump 
and mighty comforting w^ithal, upon occasion. 

If he is so lucky as to live near a port where 
steamships land, the planter may sell his platanos 
for a cent or even two cents for each finger or 
fruit ; and as the plants may be set only eight or ten 
feet apart, and each will mature a bunch of thirty 
to fifty fingers every nine months, it is clear that 
he who has an acre of platanos may have a tidy 
income of food or of cash. Usually the planter pre- 
fers to eat this fruit, for which reason people in 
the Xorth have few opportunities for learning its 
many and superior virtues. The ])lanter is quite 
right, for the platano is the banana most fit to be 
cooked ; and it is l)y no means bad to eat raw. 

Sometimes a ])l'mter may leave a bunch of 



10 FRUIT NEVER RIPENED IN THE FIELD 

bananas to ripen on the standing stalk, but that will 
rarely be„ for the fruit so ripened is strong in flavor, 
dry and too soft to bear transportation ; its skin 
splits, and dust, and ants, bees and other insects 
gather about the exposed flesh. So in all the banana 
lands women lug home green bunches and hang them 
in the house to ripen, where everybody who has the 
right — and that is every visitor, every member of 
the family, and every passing acquaintance — may 
pluck and eat as the fruit turns yellow and becomes 
tender. Meanwhile many of the fruits will have 
been taken from the bunch, peeled and broken into 
bits, to be boiled with beef or pork, or flesh of the 
deer, peccary or other game, or to be cooked in 
other ways. 

Another sub-variety of platanos bears, in Mos- 
quitia, the name of "butuco," perhaps from the name 
of the River Patuca — or may be the river has taken 
its name from the banana. The butuco is perhaps 
rather more tart than the miel silpe, and when fried 
reminds one of fried greening apples, and when 
stewed has somewhat of the flavor of stewed 
peaches. In either way it is most agreeable to the 
taste. There are other platanos, also, most of tliem 
giants among bananas, some kinds being fifteen or 
more inches long and two or three inches in diam- 
eter. These are firm in flesh, resist decay much 
longer than do the common guineos. and will, there- 
fore, much better bear transportation. They should 



WHAT BANANAS GtVE THE PLANTER ft 

l)ecoine known to the millions of northern lands, for 
they would afford a vast supply of food much more 
convenient and palatable than, and equal in value to, 
potatoes. 

Although scarcely a generation has passed since 
the business of importing bananas to the United 
States began, millions of people in this country have 
learned to like the fruit, and are now beginning to 
understand a little its true value as a staple food. 
Yet there are many other millions who scarcely see 
the banana, except perhaps on some holiday, when 
they buy a few that they may taste the fruit which is 
so great a rarity to them. In Great Britain the 
banana is hardly known to most of the forty millions 
of people there, and in Continental Europe a like 
condition prevails. These facts are evidence enough 
that the production of bananas can not easily be 
overdone. 

Reports which cover many years of experience 
by thousands of planters of all degrees of ability, 
and of lack of ability, in the West Indies and on 
the coasts of Central America and of Mexico, show 
that the average annual yield, the income, the cost 
and the profits of banana culture were as shown 
below : 



Countries 



Costa Rica. 
Guatemala 
Honduras. . 
Jamaica ... 

Mexico 

Nicaragua . 



Averages 



Yield 


Income 


Cost 


250.0 


$ 70.67 


$ 28.84 


267.^ 


89. H 


30.82 


377-4 


82.63 


'5-79 


28S.0 


78.82 


19-85 


290 


89.00 


20.25 


246.2 


62. t8 


1.S.89 


2S4.8 


$78.81 


$ 21.91 



Profits 



$41-83 
58.72 
66.84 
5''-97 
68.75 
46.29 

$ 56-90 



COMPAKISON OF SEVEN CROPhv 



I 3 



The averages shown by the last hne in the above 
table are safe guides for an\' wno wish to calculate 
the probable results of an investment of money or 
cf la]:)or in banana growing. 

In the year 1902 the average yield of wheat in 
the United States equalled 12.79 bushels, or 767.4 
pounds. This had a food value equal to nearly one- 
third that of the average output of bananas from 
an acre. It is often said that one pound of bananas 
has as nnich nutrition as has a pound of beef. 
The truth is that one pound of beef is worth three 
and onc-tl:ird pounds of bananas. Bananas are far 
enough ahead of the harvests the farmer of the 
North gets, without making exaggerated claims for 
the fruit of the tropics. 

Duriiig the years above mentioned the yield and 
v^Jue of the chief six food crops of the United 
States, per acre, and their actual food value, in 
calories or imits of energy, as compared with those 
of bananas, were as shown below : 



Varieties of Foods 



Buckwheat 

Corn 

Oats 

Potatoes ... 

R e 

Wheat 



Avera.cfes 
Bananas 



Vnhies 


Pounds 


Calories 


In Favor of 


Per Acre 


per Acre 


per Acre 


Bananas 


$ 9.70 


795-96 


1. 277.516 


3, 168, 4*^4 


9.62 


1,723.40 


2.817,759 


1,628,241 


8.29 


870.08 


1,566,144 


2,879,856 


39-45 


4,826.40 


1,243,788 


3,022,212 


8.22 


744-80 


871,416 


3,574 584 


10 II 


766.80 


1,265,220 


3,180,780 


$ q.66 


1,621 .74 


I, .^36,974 


2,909,026 


78.81 


17,100.00 


4,446,000 


2,909,026 



In a report on the constituents and food values 
of most articles in common use on northern tables, 



14 



PRECISE TRUTH ABOUT FOODS 



the United States Department of Agriculture gave, 
in the year 1903, figures which show that of the 
eighteen vegetables, of potatoes, and of ten varieties 
of fruits which make up the chief of our diet, and 
of bananas, each group has the following elements 
and food values : 



Elements 


Vegetables 


Potatoes 


Fruits 


Bananas 


Carbohydrates, parts 

Fats 

Protein. . 


8 6 
0.4 
2.1 

0.9 
71-5 
14-5 


14.7 
0.1 
1.8 
0.8 
62.0 
20.0 


11. 1 
0.4 
0.6 
0.5 

64-3 

23-1 


M-3 
4 
0.8 


Ash 

Water 


0.6 
48.9 
35-0 


Refuse 


Fuel values 


2152 


2^5.0 


204.4 


260.0 







These figures show that while the eighteen fresh 
vegetables have ii.i parts of nutritive elements, 
potatoes 16.6 parts, and the ten varieties of fruits 
have 1 2. 1 parts, bananas have 15.5 parts. This 
seems to show, also, that if the fresh vegetables 
were worth, say $1.00, a like weight of fruits would 
be worth $1.09, of bananas would be worth $1,40, 
and of potatoes $1.49. 

Prof. Wynter Blythe, of London, is an analyst 
who tells us that the relative values of banana meal 
and of sago, maize and wheat flours are : 



Constituents 


Banana 


Sago 


Corn Meal 


Wheat Flour 


Water 


Per Cent. 
8.05 
4-45 
82. S7 
2.28 
0.77 
1.88 


Per Cent. 
13.00 

78.06 
2-5- 

0.53 


Per Cent. 
11.09 

85-30 
2 37 

0.43 


Per Cent, 
15-08 

81.60 


Solublealbumen dextrine 
Starch 






Fat 

Ash 


0.35 





Statements made by other analysts seem to war- 



POTATOES VS. BANANAS 



rant the deduction that the nutritive value of a 
ton of potatoes, at one cent per pound, is 19 cents 
more than that of a ton of bananas at the same 
price. There is a difTerence, too, in the cost of 
production of a ton of potatoes and the cost of rais- 
ing a ton of bananas. The field for potatoes must 
be plowed and harrowed in the spring, the seed 
dropped in furrows, which are then to be cov- 
ered, after which comes cultivating again and again 
until the time has come for digging and picking, 
carting, sacking and hauling, often to a distant 
market. 

Luckily for the millions who have depended so 
largely on the banana for sustenance, the plant has 
few, if any, insect enemies and diseases, in which 
they have great advantage over most crops of 
northern lands. 

So the planter of bananas has each year four and 
a half times as much palatable food from an acre as 
the farmer gets from his potatoes : and there is the 
further difference that the one has bananas at no 
other cost than that of keeping down bush and 
grass and vine, that would quickly cover every spot 
to which the sunshine could penetrate, along the 
edges of the plantation. For bananas yield year 
after year without replanting. Each new stalk 
springs from the foot of its parent, grows to a height 
of fifteen to thirty-five feet, bears its burden of 
luscious fruit, and dies ; but not before it has sent 




c 
c 

PS 

^- 1 



REST FIELD FOR CROWING THE FRl'IT 1/ 

up from its own root new stalks to fruit and die — 
and so on through the centuries. 

He who would grow bananas for market must 
plant on the border of navigable w^aters giving 
access to some harbor or anchorage where ships may 
safely lie while receiving the fruit. For it is easily 
bruised, and wetting by salt water blackens the 
skins, thus injuring or preventing the sale. Planta- 
tions are usually on the banks of rivers or of estu- 
aries, but some are beside railroads, to which the 
fruit is carried by carts thickly carpeted with banana 
leaves. A cruder way is to hang a few bunches over 
the back of a burro or of a mule, which plods along 
to the shipping place. 

It is evident that the entire area which can so 
be devoted to banana culture must be small, for 
most Central American and Mexican Rivers are 
obstructed at their mouths by sandbars, over which 
ships cannot pass. Bluefields, Nicaragua, has been 
a most profitable field for banana growing, because 
it has a river into which sea-going ships can safely 
enter, and up which such ships may go fifty or 
sixty miles, and receive their cargoes from landings 
on the plantations which border the Rio Escondido. 
Yet millions of bunches of bananas have been 
shipped from the open coast of Honduras, where 
the one good harbor is that at Puerto Cortez. 

Other millions have been shipped from Port 
Limon and from Bocas del Toro, in Costa Rica, 



l8 WHENCE BEST BANANAS COME 

V hence a few hundred bunches were sent as a 
JDCginning to the United States in the year 1883. 
During the year 1904 the port of Limon itself sent 
5,760,000 bunches to the markets of the world. 
They brought to Costa Rica credit for producing the 
best bananas known. 

To-day millions of bunches are each year sold in 
the United States and even in Canada, and in 1902 
ship-loads were sent from Costa Rica direct to Eu- 
rope. That little republic alone received not less 
than $1,127,400 for bananas sold abroad during the- 
year that ended with September, 1902. 

It is safe to assume that more than $6,000,000 
was paid in the year 1902, in Central America alone, 
to planters of bananas. Nearly all of that was paid 
by products of American farms, factories and for- 
ests. Farmer, manufacturer and miner, lumber- 
man, railroad man and sailor, merchant and broker 
of this country, are all concerned in and benefited 
by the work done in shady aisles beneath banana 
leaves on the banks of tropic rivers. 

Bananas reach their best estate on low, deep 
alluvium like that near the Caribbean coast, or that 
of southern Mexico, where the temperature never 
sinks below 60° and is seldom below 80° F. Such 
low lands may serve the better if flooded two 
or three times in the year, for the banana drinks 
much water, and such floods bring silt from the 
hills, and thus keep the ground fertilize*^, with- 



ALTITUDES FOR BANANA CULTURE I9 

out cost to the owner. In 1897 the banana fields 
of the Rio Escondido were so deeply flooded 
that the steamship "Saga" voyaged through the 
main streets of Rama, fully sixty miles from the 
mouth of the river, to pick off from their roofs the 
dwellers in that town. The bananas barely showed 
their tops above the yellow flood. Along the coast 
went reports that the plantations were ruined, sub- 
scriptions were asked to help the planters ; and three 
months later they were harvesting better crops than 
in years before. Their plantations had been so 
enriched that they bore most bountifully. 

Bananas may be grown wherever there is some 
moisture and no near approach to the frost line ; but 
a touch of frost cuts down the banana as a breath 
from a fiery furnace would blight a tender lily. 
The city of Tegucigalpa is 3,600 feet above the 
level of the sea, yet in that town is a field some 
thirty feet above the current in the swift river which 
it borders. It is very dry during months of each 
year, but in that field are platanos which reach a 
height of more than twenty feet and bear bunches 
enough comfortably to support the owner. In nar- 
row canon and wider valley near that place are 
many patches of bananas which bring to their plant- 
ers a suflicient income. And at that altitude the 
mercury sometimes falls below 65° Fahrenheit. 

In the land of bananas, cats, dogs and pigs, 
mules, horses and cattle, parrots, babies and all other 



FOR WHAT BANANAS ARE TRULY GOOD 21 

domestic animals thrive on this perfect nature-food, 
when they can get it. I have seen an Indian woman 
pry open with her fingers the jaws of a haby peccary, 
and with a gruel of green bananas choke the little 
pig's incessant, rasping cry of "ma, ma !" And the 
next instant she put that same calabash of gruel to the 
lips of her own babe of three or four months. I've 
seen other Indians feed infant tapir, suckling jaguar, 
naked squabs of parrots and very young monkeys 
on such pap, which those folk call wabool. With 
such fruit I, myself, have safely carried abandoned 
cardinals through from their infant days of scant pin 
feathers to those of full regimentals of brilliant scar- 
let with epaulets of jet; and they overflowed with 
joyful song and saucy happiness as much as they 
could had w^orms and bugs been the chief of their 
diet every day of their lives, instead of the bananas 
on wdiich they had been largely fed. 

W'hy not, indeed, when cakes and beer, brandy 
and sugar, pies, puddings and sauce, banana coffee 
and chocolate, and many another thing good for man 
to take for his stomach's sake, are made from 
bananas. So, too, are paper and laces, brushes and 
cloth, and cordage enough to pull up the earth by 
its roots, if only we had a place to hook the tackle. 

When he has set out an acre or two of bananas, 
the planter need have no fears for the future. He 
has ample insurance against such privations as come 
from illness, accident or old age : and they who by a 



22 INSURANCE THAT REALLY INSURES 

little labor pay for such insurance share each day its 
material benefits. No need for them to die that 
others may enjoy the blessings of such wise provi- 
sion ; nor need the planter toil with hoe or spade, 
cultivator or plow-. It may be he will slash away 
with machete such vine or sapling, grass or weed 
as happens to obstruct his path ; but as a whole he 
interferes as little as possible with the operations of 
kindly Mother Nature. She is more than ready to 
do his work : he is willing to let her do it. 

He whose acre of bananas has been well planted 
has on it 225 hills, or 900 stalks. Each stalk will 
give him a bunch which, on rich, new ground, should 
weigh 60 pounds, say 54,000 pounds each 12 or 14 
months. That is the theory. The fact seems to be 
that the average yield is really 275 to 300 full 
bunches to the acre per annum, say a mean of 285 
bunches weighing about 17,000 pounds. As has 
been shown, the average yield reported all along the 
Caribbean shore and from Jamaica, during a dozen 
years, equaled 284.8 full bunches an acre per annum. 

In the year 1902 the average yield of potatoes in 
the United States was 80.44 bushels per acre, and 
the average farm value was 49 cents per bushel, or 
$39.45 an acre. In Costa Rica the average price of 
bananas on the plantation v/as equal to at least 2^ 
cents a bunch. At that figure 261 bunches would 
bring $70.47. In August, 1903, the price was raised 
to 31 cents a bunch on contracts to run three to five. 



WHAT MANY PLANTERS HAVE DONE 23 

years ; which should give $84.00 per acre each year. 
That was a cash difference of $44.55 in favor of the 
man whose bananas raised themselves for him. 
There was another difference in his favor, for his 
fruit could well be eaten green or ripe, raw or roast- 
ed, boiled or fried, with fish, flesh or fowl, or with 
none of these. 

In 1903 advices from plantations covering 550 
acres of bananas in the Santa Clara district, in Costa 
Rica, where wages are one colon, or 47 cents a day, 
stated that the cost of cultivating, harvesting and 
delivering the fruit at the railroad Was, for the year, 
$17.69 per acre, the yield of fruit was only 173 
bunches, and the income was $54.90. Thus those 
bananas cost 10.2 cents per bunch, and the gross 
profit was 20.8 cents a bunch, or 200 per cent. As 
all the fruit is sold five years ahead at those fi.gures, 
that percentage of profit may well be regarded as a 
fair return for the investment, combined as it is with 
an assurance of continued gain. If the yield had 
equalled the average of 285 bunches per acre, even 
at like cost per bunch for production, the net income 
would have been equal to 10 per cent, on $592.80 per 
acre. 

There are those who insist that the higher results 
shown in the foregoing may easily be obtained by 
any one who will give as much thought and labor to 
growing bananas as are required for the successful 
raising of corn or of potatoes. It is true that the 



BANANA CULTURE VS. FARMING 25 

iigures on which the averages shown are based were, 
in many cases, from the experience of native and 
other planters of httle diHgence and skill, and that 
they got smaller results than might easily have been 
obtained. It may be possible that if one will allow 
two or three stalks to rise from each stand of 
bananas, and together mature their fruit, he may get 
444 to 780 bunches from an acre each of a few yearS; 
and that in such a case he might get $185 to $278 for 
the crop ; but it will be clear tc all that he who ex- 
pects to make only 280 bunches per annum from an 
acre, and get only $50 to $60 profit therefrom, will 
be safer than he who invests his money with the ex- 
pectation of making greater gains. 

As the cost of producing bananas after the first 
crop f'^om a plantation is confined to cultivating and 
harvesting, which may be done for $10 to $20 per 
acre yearly, it is scarcely wonderful that Judge 
O'Hara, late U. S. Consul at Greytown, Nicaragua, 
a lawyer whose acute mind is trained to sifting evi- 
dence, reported to the Department of State at Wash- 
ington regarding banana-growing on the Atlantic 
coast of that republic, that : 

It seems reasonably certain that bananas on the Blue- 
fields River pay better than many crops in the United 
States. * * * * These fi';^iVres would seem to indicate that 
at the end of a year a planter having 36 acres of bananas 
under cultivation would have $3,847.32 left after paying for 
all necessary labor and provisions — figures apt to bring 
discontent to an American farmer having but 36 acres 



26 



AN AGGRAVATION OF DISCONTENT 



of wheat or corn; and especially so when he compares 
the price of his land, ranging from $15 to $80 per acre, 
with that of land in eastern Nicaragua, where cultivated 
lands may be said to have no established market value, 
few improved plantations having ever been sold. 

Such discontent might be aggravated by con- 
sideration of the differences which exist between the 
results obtained from the chief eight crops of the 
United States and those shown by the foregoing 
summary of banana farming. These differences 
are illustrated by the following figures, those for the 
crops of the North showing the yield and farm 
values for the 38 years that ended with June, 1903. 
The last column shows the difference in favor of 
bananas per acre : 



Crops 



Barley, bushels. 
Buckwheat, " 
Corn, " 

Oats, 

Rye, '• . 
Wheat, 
Potatoes, " 
Hay, tons 



Averag;es 



Yield per 
Acre 



13.29 
16.08 
24.76 
22.88 
13-38 
12.78 
81.91 
1.42 



Value per 
Acre 



I 12.32 
9.70 
9-57 
8.34 
8.22 
10 06 
41-79 
11.80 



I 9-85 



Difference, fa- 
vor of Haiianas 



$ 68.96 



From this it appears that the plantation value of 
the annual crop of an acre of bananas averages 
seven times as much as the principal crops of the 
United States give the farmer for his months of toil. 
What wonder if the dweller in tropical America is 
content with what a little effort gives, or that years 



TOO AIUCH MONEY FOR PLANTERS 2"] 

ago a Consul of the United States complained that : 
"A large proportion of the fruit-growers were 
formerly vacqueros in the interior, working on a 
salary of $30 to $40 a year. They are now owners 
of plantations, and have a steady income of $30 to 
$300 a month. The large amount of money dis- 
tributed along this coast in exchange for fruit would 
make any civilized and temperate community pros- 
perous and happy. There would be public and pri- 
vate schools, churches and banks, newspapers and 
libraries, parks and carriages, and handsome dwell- 
ings supplied with every comfort and luxury, sur- 
rounded by gardens of flowers, fruits and vegetables 
natural to this climate of perpetual seedtime and 
harvest." 

Those who have good lands back from navigable 
water and remote from railroads, are not without 
hope of profit from bananas ; for they may dry the 
fruit before it has ripened, and from it make a flour 
that has all the merits of wheat flour, and other good 
qualities, also ; or they may dry it when it has fully 
ripened, when it will be very useful in making cakes 
and candy, or may be eaten even as figs are. 

In his "Darkest Africa" Stanley endorsed strong- 
ly the nutritive value of banana flour, and wondered 
that the natives seemed not to have discovered what 
invaluable nourishing and easily digested food they 
had in the platano and in the banana. He expressed 
the conviction that, 'Tf onlv the virtues of banana 



VARIED USES FOR THE FRUIT 29 

Hour were publicly known, it is not to be doubted 
but it wouUl be largely consumed in Europe. For 
infants, persons of delicate digestion, dyspeptics and 
those sufifering from temporary derangement of the 
stomach, the flour properly prepared would be of 
universal demand. During my two attacks of gas- 
tritis a light gruel of this, mixed with milk, was the 
only matter that could be digested." 

So high an authority as the "Dictionary of Eco- 
nomical Productions of India" says : 

The large crop of food produced by bananas and plan- 
tains may be preserved for an indefinite period either by 
drying the fruit or by preparing meal from it. When the 
nearly ripe fruit is cut into slices and dried in the sun, a 
certain part of the sugar contained in the fruit crystalizes 
on the surface and acts as a preservative. The slices thus 
prepared, if made from the finer varieties, make an excellent 
dessert preserve, and if from the coarser, may be used for 
cooking in the ordinary way. They keep well if care- 
fully packed when dry, and ought to form a valuable 
antiscorbutic for long voyages. The fruit may also be 
similarly preserved whole by stripping ofT the skin and 
drying it in the sun. Plantain meal is prepared by 
stripping off the husk and reducing it to powder, and 
finely sifting. It is calculated that the fresh core will 
yield 40 per cent, of this meal, and that an acre of 
average quality will yield over a ton. 

Plantain meal is of a slightly brownish color, and has 
an agreeable odor, which becomes more perceptible when 
warm water is poured upon it, and has a considerable re- 
semblance to that of orris root. When mixed with cold 
water it forms a feebly tenacious dough, more adhesive 
than that of oatmeal, but much less so than that of 



30 USEFUL FOR MANY OTHER THINGS 

wheaten flour. When baked on a hot plate this dough 
forms a cake which is agreeable to the sense of smell, and 
is by no means unpleasant to the taste. When boiling 
water is poured over the meal it is changed into a trans- 
parent jelly, having an agreeable taste and smell. Boiled 
with water it forms a thick gelatmous mass, very much 
like boiled sago in color, but possessing a peculiar pleasant 
odor. 

In a commtmication to Kew Gardens Louis Asser 
gives the following list of commercial preparations 
from the banana and the platano : 

1. Dried slices of the entire fruit (pulp and peel) in 
the starchy state suitable for the preparation of alcohol 
or for making into a nourishing bread. 

2. Meal in a starchy state from the pulp only for 
making into a superior kind of bread or porridge. 

3. Flakes and meal in a dextrinous state for use in 
breweries or for making into nourishing soups, puddings, 
etc. 

4. Dried peel and coarse meal prepared from it for 
feeding cattle and pigs. 

5. Banana marmalade. 

6. Dried bananas entire without peel put up like 
dried figs in boxes. 

7. Raw alcohol from fresh bananas, and also from 
dried banana meal. 

8. Syrup of bananas for confectionery, for prepara- 
tions of liquors and for sweetening champagne. 

9. Banana meal for the manufacture of glucose. 

10. Fibre of banana and plantain prepared from the 
stems after fruiting, and intended for the manufacture of 
paper and cordage. 

In his report on the starch producing plants, Dr. 
Shirer says of the platano of British Guiana : 




A BUNCH OF BANANAS 



FOOD FOR INFANTS AND INVALIDS 3[ 

The plantain is so abnndant and cheap that it might, 
if cut and dried in its green state, be exported with ad- 
vantage. It is in this unripe state that it is so largely 
used by the peasantry of this Colony as an article of food. 
When dried and reduced to the state of meal, it cannot 
like wheat flour be manufactured into macaroni or vermi- 
celli, or, at least, the macaroni made from it falls into 
powder when put into hot water. Plantain meal is pre- 
I)ared by stripping off the husk of the plantain, slicing 
the core, and drying it in the sun. When thoroughly 
dry it is powdered and sifted. It has a fragrant odor, 
acquired in drying, somewhat resembling fresh hay or 
tea. It is largely employed as the food of infants and 
invalids. In respect to nutritiveness it deserves a prefer- 
ence over all the pure starches on account of the protein 
compounds it contains. The flavor of the meal depends 
a good deal on the rapidity with which the slices are 
dried. Above all, the plantain must not be allowed to 
approach too closely to yellowness or ripeness, otherwise 
it becomes impossible to dry it. The color of the meal 
is injured when steel knives are used in husking or slicing, 
but silver or nickel blades do not injure the color. Full- 
sized and well-filled bunches give 60 per cent, of core to 
40 per cent, of husk and topstem; but in general it would 
be found that the core did not much exceed 50 per cent, 
of dry meal, so that from 20 to 25 per cent, of meal is 
obtained from the plantain, or 5 pounds from the average 
bunch of 25 pounds; and an acre of plantain walk of aver- 
age quality, producing during the year 450 such bunches, 
would yield 2,250 pounds of meal. 

In 1891, C. W. Meaden wrote from Trinidad to 
the following effect in relation to a trial shipment of 
dried bananas : 

The result of drying six launches, weighing an aver- 



32 Dried ripe fruit bring profit 

age of 52 pounds per ripe bunch, was 97 pounds of dried 
fruit. There was a loss of two-thirds in peeling and dry- 
ing. The fruit sold for $19.40, or 20 cents per pound. 
Deducting freight charges left $15.47, or a fraction under 
16 cents per pound. This was at the rate of $2.72 per 
bunch. The cost was put at 53 cents, which covered pur- 
chase of land, clearing woods and draining, planting, 
weeding and cutting, drying, fuel, boxes and packing; 
but (lid not include cost of dryer, as that would be but a 
fraction on each bunch dried. After deducting the above 
there was a profit of $2.19 per bunch. 

This experiment will prove of importance to 
banana growers, as drying bananas seems to open a 
way no other means offers of utilizing frtiit. It 
overcomes the difficulty of hd.d roads, long hauls and 
other drawbacks some planters have to face in mar- 
keting bananas. 

In this connection it may be interesting to note 
that, according to the American Analyst, February 
15th, 1893, the chemical composition of bananas and 
potatoes is almost identical, as shown by the follow- 
ing comparison : 

Banana Potato 

Water 75.71 75.77 

Albumenoids 1.71 1.79 

Total carbonaceous matter (non-nitro- 
genous) 20.13 20.72 

Woody fibre 1.74 .75 

Ash 71 .97 

So far as has been shown there is little difference 
between the actual food values of the seventv-five or 
more varieties of bananas, which may be divided 
generally into the platano, or cooking kinds, and 
bananas, more commonlv eaten uncooked. 



COMPAKIiD WITH TWENTY FOODS 



33 



Such teachings of science, which have not been 
disputed by any whose standing would make their 
opinions worthy of consideration, should settle the 
question of the exact nutritive value of the golden 
treasure of the tropics, but that the reader may deter- 
mine with precision what are the relative energy- 
giving values per pound of each of 20 well-known 
foods, compared with bananas, the value of each is 
shown below : 



Articles 


1 Refuse 


Water 


Calories 


Chocolate, with sugar 


1... 


5.90 
If .00 

3-50 
27.40 
34-20 


5.625 


Butter 




Cocoanut, prepared, dry 




3,410 

2,865 


Cheese, Cheddar 




Cheese, full cream 




2,075 

1,885 


Sugar, granulated 




Pork, sausage, etc 


7-7« 


40-94 
II. 10 
12.50 
12.30 
9-50 
12.60 

26.90 
5-30 
45-37 
53-34 
42.92 
74-00 
65.00 


1.750 
1,685 
1,636 
1.635 
1,620 
1,565 


Wheat flour and other cereals.... 


Maize meal 




Rice 




Peas, dried 




Beans, dried 




Bread, biscuit, cake, etc 






Milk, condensed 




1.453 


Nuts in common use 


45-30 
17-03 
15 -85 
26.95 


1,312 
1,208 
944 
901 
865 
635 


Mutton and lamb 


Beef, fresh, salted, and veal 

Poultry, all kinds, domestic 

Cream 


Eggs, fresh .' " 


11.20 




Averages 


7 -.-9 
35.00 


28.13 
48.90 
12.10 


1,546 

260 

1,^75 


Bananas, fresh 


Banana products average 







The actual food value of fresh bananas, compared 
with that of 19 fresh vegetables and of 10 fresh 
fruits most generally used in the United States and 
in Euro])e, is : 

L OF C. 



34 



COMPOSITION OF THE BANANA 



Constituent El ments 


Bananas, Fresh 


Other Fruit 


Vegetables 




.'5-0 

48.9 

.8 

•4 

14-3 

.6 

260.0 


22.14 

64-33 
•63 
•39 

11.07 

• 4 
204.40 


14.85 
73-03 

•35 
8.»6 


Water 


Protein 

Fats 


Carboh\drates .. 


Ash 


.86 


Units of nutrition 


203.0s 



Many people have become convinced that they 
are harmed by the use of coffee, and have tried vari- 
ous substitutes for the berry of Arabia; There is 
no doubt that free use of coffee, particularly if milk 
or cream is added, does cause harm ; but there is 
reason for the opinion that some, if not most, sub- 
stitutes are even more injurious. Those who manu- 
facture some such substitutes boldly assert that their 
productions are nutritious ; but the highest authority 
in the land, the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, says : 

The average of five analyses of cereal coffee is: Water 
6.2, protein 13.3, fat 3.4, carbohydrates 72.6, and ash 4.5 
per cent. Only a portion of the nutrients, however, enter 
into the infusion. 

The Department then shows that in the decoction 
there are 98.2 parts water, protein 0.2, carbohydrates 
1.4, and ash 0.2 per cent.^ and that the total number 
of units of energy in a pound is only 30, which is 
so little as to be wholly unworthy of consideration. 
Some at least of such so-called cereal cofifees are 
said to be made of damaged grain, of the refuse from 
brewers' vats, of bran and other like substances. 



BANANA COFFEE Sl'PERlOR TO OTHER 35 

soaked with coffee extract or with chicory added. 
The worthless nature of such mixtures must l)e ap- 
parent to aU. 

There is cause for congratulation, therefore, in 
the fact that bananas of the proper states of maturity, 
])roperly mixed, dried and roasted, furnish material 
for a beverage w^hich is palatable, perfectly haruilcss, 
and really nutritious. The wdiole may be taken as 
chocolate is used, and as the Turk takes his pulver- 
ized coft"ee, grounds and all. Many who now habit- 
ually use so-called banana coffee are firm in declar- 
ing that it is more palatable than genuine coffee can 
be, and has no bad effect. So far, the demand has 
constantly exceeded the supply. 

Candy made from bananas and sugar has sold so 
readily that the demand has not been fully supplied 
since such confection was first offered. In fact the 
inquiry for such products of bananas has become so 
steady and so strong that those who have for years 
thoroughly and carefully studied and experimented 
in this line are now ready to establish mills and 
carry on the making of banana flour and other prod- 
ucts of this fruit, on a scale large enough to pay fair 
profits. 

To humanity at large, these facts seem full of 
promise ; for banana planters in particular they seem 
to offer unusually strong encouragement. For, if 
banana flour has 90.07 per cent, of nutrients while 
sago has only 80.63, wheat flour 83.71, and maize 



36 GREAT PROMISE l- 



llllilllllllilllllllllllllllillllllllllll 

000 909 113 



meal has but 87.67 per cent, of nutrition, as shown 
by the table on another page, there can be no doubt 
that the world will readily take all the banana flour, 
all the dried bananas and all the banana coffee the 
tropics will be able to furnish. If banana flour can 
be made and delivered in Europe at a cost of only 
two or three cents a pound, the demand for this 
material inevitably must become very great. 

For it should not be forgotten that bananas give 
each year crops which are easily injured by bruising, 
and are exceedingly heavy, the average annual yield 
from good lands being nearly or quite eight tons per 
acre. So tender and so bulky a crop cannot profit- 
ably be carried long distances, without means for 
quick and easy transportation. So long as the fruit 
shall be sold in its green or crude condition, it must 
remain unprofitable to plant it far from navigable 
waters, or from a railroad. 

It is true that in the past lack of knowledge of the 
art of making flour and other dry products of bananas 
rendered it quite difficult to do so successfully in 
climates which are both warm and very moist ; but 
there are many elevated and comparatively dry 
places, near rich and moist lowland, where the fruit 
may be dried and ground, and thus preserved for 
shipment long distances. In such places, modern 
machinery and processes for making such products 
will probably be set up, and supply the millions with 
food which is equal to most and better than much 



TO FURNISH FOOD TO IMILLIONS 2>7 

vegetable food now commonly nsed — and the world 
will be much better for it, while the planter will gain 
even more than he now profits. 

Housewives who wish for novelties to lend new 
charm to their tables, to tickle the palate of the epi- 
cure, or to coax the reluctant appetite of the invalid 
will find them in novel dainties made from bananas. 
Excellent bread is made of the flour. Puddings, 
fritters and sauce have already been mentioned ; ba- 
nanas glace are new to most northern folk, and may 
be made a most delightful addition to our desserts. 
Dried ripe bananas are superior to figs, for when 
split into four slices, thickly covered with powdered 
sugar, and exposed to the sun a while they turn into 
a jelly-like, delicious confection. Such has been at 
its best w^hen made in the native home of the fruit, 
and packed in pretty boxes to be sent to people of 
taste, in the cold North. 

Summing all" obtainable evidence worthv of con- 
sideration, one is manifestlv warranted in savino" 

Banana culture is one of the oldest of industries, 
and has no secrets, no diseases and no enemies with 
which to contend. 

Bananas have been grown through thousands of 
years by millions of people, and, beginning seven to 
twelve months after the first planting, yield continu- 
ous harvests for years without replanting. 

Bananas give, for little labor, one and one-third 
times as much food as corn produces ; two and one- 



JUN 29 »905i 



38 SUMMING UP THE EVIDENCE 

third times as much food as oats supply ; ahiiost 
three times as much nutriment per acre as buck- 
wheat furnishes ; nearly three times as much food per 
acre as potatoes give ; four times as much nutriment 
as comes from rye, and almost three times as much 
food per acre as wheat averages. 

liananas pay their producer nearly three times as 
much money as potatoes are worth, per acre ; bring 
the planter profits which are three times the farm 
value of the chief food crops of the United States ; 
paid gains equal to five per cent, per annum on 
$1,138 per acre for the last 25 years; and bananas 
are sold years ahead of production, at prices insuring 
good profits. 

Bananas are by millions of people eaten green or 
ripe, raw or cooked ; are served in all ways in which 
apples, grains and potatoes are used, and are palat- 
able, healthful and nutritious in every way in which 
they are prepared. 

Bananas make excellent bread, cakes and pies, 
puddings, confectionery and coffee substitutes ; yield 
brandy, beer and vinegar, sugar, oil and fibers. 

Bananas are bought as a luxury by millions who 

may use them as a staple food ; yet bananas may be 

grown profitably in a small area only, therefore 

banana culture affords a perfectly safe and gainful 

use for time and money. , ^^r>^^., 

■^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



llillliiilliiilliiljliiilliililililillillljjjllllllll 
000 909 113 



LIBRARY OF CONGPFQc 

wm. 



